Page 83 of The Dragons’ Eternal Mate

Craig didn’t look away from the road. “I don’t know. One minute, she was fine gathering wildflowers, the next, she was on the ground, shaking.”

Mentally, I started running through everything that could be wrong.

An impromptu seizure was unlikely with no previous history of it, but it wasn’t unheard of. Though it was potentially more likely that she’d touched something dangerous. I’d upgraded my mobile kit to include poison remedies after the issue with Orsen and Grey, but it might not work for Ms. Miller if the plant wasn’t similar.

Heat stroke… malnutrition or low blood sugar…It could be any number of things.

Thankfully, we pulled up to the fields in no time, and I rushed out of the Jeep before Craig.

“Where is she?” I asked, looking around the clearing.

I turned behind me to look at Craig. I didn’t know what’d happened, and problems only got worse the longer you waited to address them.

Only, there was no one behind me.

An uneasy feeling washed over me. I was on my own, on the outskirts of our horde lands. The roar of an engine grabbed my attention, and I turned.

“What?” I couldn’t see the Jeep anymore, and my stomach tied into coiled knots as the sounds of birds and wind surrounded me.

There was no one around for miles—Craig had vanished, driven off into the trees or something.

“Fuck,” I muttered to myself. I knew the way back to the den, so I could just walk back there, but it would take much longer than driving. My gut churned, acid reaching up the back of my throat as my heart hammered against my ribs. I had a sneaking suspicion that Craig had brought me out here for a very specific reason.

I couldn’t stay here. I needed to move, but the last thing I wanted to do was follow the path he would assume I would take.

Dammit. Think, Rowan. You need to get back to the den.

Blinding pain hit me as someone grabbed my scalp from behind, tugging firmly, nails digging into my scalp.

“You!” a man snarled.

My stomach dropped through the earth. I knew that voice, and the slow terror filling my blood shot into overdrive.

“C-Cyrus?”

I staggered away as he shoved me into the field of tall grass in front of me. I whipped around, turning to look at him. My jaw dropped, and I tried to understand what I was looking at.

Cyrus had always been a proud dragon, spine straight, even that day when he’d been in pain at my clinic. He looked so much like Bastian, dark hair mildly peppered with gray and white. That was not what I was seeing now.

The previous Alpha looked horridly disheveled, his eyes angry and wild, bloodshot and ringed red from exhaustion. There was a yellow-gray pallor to his skin, and Cyrus sneered, baring his teeth like a feral animal.

“You ruined everything!” he snarled. “Stupid fucking human, turning my own son against me!”

He surged forward, raking his hand through the air. I narrowly dove away, missing the blow by centimeters. I hit the ground and groaned; the air forced out of my lungs. Swinging my head around, I forced myself to stand as Cyrus rushed for me, driven by blind rage.

“You were supposed to be dead.” His low, raspy voice growled, the sound of too much saliva in his mouth. “But when you need something done…”

He stomped toward me, and I scrabbled out of the way as he reached for my shirt, screaming when I barely dodged another attack. No one was going to hear me out here, but I felt like I had to try, crying out as Cyrus spun around again, barreling toward me once more.

“You do it…” Cyrus rushed me, his fingers producing claws as he roared, “Yourself!”

Without thinking, I moved across the ground and crawled toward my bag, shoving my hand inside it and reaching for the single item I knew I had inside.

A few weeks ago, an idea had come to mind, and I remembered standing in the clinic after treating Ma’s wounds. If it were me against a dragon, I had no hope of survival. A human was no match for their speed and strength. I was small and breakable. I needed to level the playing field if I was going to make it out alive.

Part of me thought it was wrong. But I also knew I needed a way to defend myself if I ended up in a situation with a dragon who wanted to hurt me.

Like the situation I was in at that moment.